I Alone
by innocent01
Summary: It's the end of the road, and Sam doesn't want to let Dean go.


This story was written as Section 2 of the first English paper in the 2007 Higher School Certificate (being the final exams for 12th grade students in my home state of New South Wales, Australia). It was pieced together wholly from memory after I returned home from sitting the exam, as I knew I would not be getting my exam back and I wanted a copy. I never intended to write a fanfic during the exam - 3.01 "The Magnificent Seven" had just aired a few nights earlier, so I believe I still had it on the brain when I wrote this story. It was written well before episode 3.16, and so does not take into account the events of the third season.

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**I Alone**

One year.

One fucking _year_. Twelve months, three hundred and sixty-five and one-quarter days. It wasn't enough.

It never _was_ enough. Not since your idiot of a brother made an incredibly selfish deal with the Devil. "I can't live without you, Sammy," he'd said, the selfish bastard. Well, guess what? Now you have to live without _him_. You knew what would happen if you tried to release Dean from his deal – fall down where you stand, battered and bleeding from a knife in your back. But it doesn't mean you have to _like_ it.

But in some ways, it _was_ enough. Putting down those sons of bitches, the Seven Deadly Sins. Tracking down a vengeance demon and sending it back where it belonged. Possessions, exorcisms, innumerable bottles of holy water and lighter fluid, shitty motel room after shitty motel room, still shaking salt from your hair and clothes weeks after the last salt-and-burn. You swear that shit's like sand – you think you've got the last of it out, and then you feel a dirty great big grain of it under your heel, digging in and driving you mad.

It's sunset. You and Dean stand at the Crossroads, facing each other and drinking one another in. A slight breeze has picked up, whipping up small dust devils in the dirt below your feet. Dean is holding the keys to the Impala in his hand, the key ring dangling from his fingers like droplets of water. There isn't a word to be said – what _could_ you say? "I'm sorry you had to sell your soul for me"? You're not going to get a reaction with that. That's Dean Winchester for you – lets everything roll off him like water off a duck's back.

There's a flash of flame, and there she is – the Crossroads Demon, standing there in all her infernal red-eyed majesty. You watch as she turns to Dean and says just six words.

"You know what time it is."

Dean doesn't say a word. He just nods and shrugs off his jacket, unties his necklace and bracelets, slips off his ring, and hands them to you. The last thing he hands you is the keys to the Impala.

"She's all yours now," he says. "You take care of her, you hear?"

"I will," you promise.

"You better." He grins, and for a second you can see a hint of the old Dean Winchester. "Otherwise I'm coming back and haunting your ass." With those words, he turns away from you.

A pack of hellhounds comes loping out of the shadows, up toward Dean and the Demon. The leader of the pack sniffs at Dean before letting out a spine-tingling, blood-chilling howl. You watch transfixed, unable to move as the pack leaps forward and attacks as one. The last sound your brother ever makes is a tortured scream that speaks of terror and pain rolled into one.

It's all over before the sun sets.

You walk back to the Impala alone, carrying Dean's belongings. The leather jacket and ring Dad gave him for his eighteenth birthday. The brass amulet on a length of leather cord that Missouri gave him for protection. The bracelets Cassie gave him. And atop them all, the keys to Dean's beloved Impala, the only thing aside from you, Dad, and putting down that son of a bitch that killed your mother, he ever cared about.

There's a bottle of bourbon sitting on the dashboard of the Impala. You reach in through the open window and pick it up, untwist the lid and start drinking. The bourbon burns going down, but you don't care. You don't give a damn anymore. In a fit of anger you hurl the bottle to the ground so forcefully that it shatters, bourbon soaking into the dirt.

"You selfish son of a bitch," you whisper brokenly. "You left me alone."

You look down. What was once a bottle now lies in pieces at your feet, a mosaic, a dance of broken, gleaming fragments soaked in alcohol.

You pull on Dean's jacket, tie on his necklace and bracelets, and get into the driver's seat. You don't look back once as you drive away.

You are Samuel Winchester, the last of the Winchester line. And you're all alone.


End file.
